Deer Park Marathon

The next evening I journeyed to Deer Park to watch a movie. The Llama from Wales invited me, and I had already been there for a meditation earlier in the week. They only watch independent films, usually from Asia or Europe. We watched 'Eternity and a Day.' It was set in Greece. It is about a man who knows he has one day to live and he spends it will a boy he found on the streets. He tries to help the kid get back to Albany, but it proves to take longer than he expected. The movie was long and boring, but had some beautiful scenery. The Llama compared the movie to poetry; it’s not necessary about the end, but the beauty from start to finish. Or something similar to that.

The next day I went to Deer Park again for a three-hour meditation/retreat. For twenty minutes we would sit and meditate. Then we had a five-minute walking meditation. Then we had five free minutes to go outside or get some tea. We repeated this schedule for three hours. Talking wasn’t aloud the entire time. The no-talking part wasn’t difficult for me; it was the sitting meditation that was hard. I’m not use to sitting in the position for that long and my back started to hurt with no support. But the entire retreat was thrilling. I came outside and walked into town. I felt alert, conscious, and very aware of my surroundings.

Yesterday was an incredible day. I met new people, talked about fascinating things, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. It all started out with having lunch at a pizzeria in town. I had a few hours before I had to be at Deer Park for our Wisdom Tea Party. The Llama said that there’s usually more tea than wisdom. Obviously that was about to change now that I was coming!

I sat down and started reading 'Shambhala Warrior' by Chogyam Trungpa, waiting for my pizza to come. While I was reading, a man with a British accent sitting two tables down asked me what I was reading. We started to talk about the book, that moved to Buddhism, which transitioned into why we where both in Bhutan. Before I knew it, he was sitting across from me and we were having lunch. He looked to be in his fifties or sixties and he said he was from the U.K. His name’s Roger and he’s a freelance writer / photographer / editor / some other things. He has been living in Bhutan for the last seven months or so and he might stay a few more, depending on if he gets enough money. He has lived in Thailand for fifteen years, Australia for some years, some other parts of Asia, Canada perhaps, and then I just lost track. The guy was loud, loved to talk, ask questions, drink, and live and write in random places; I loved him. We talked for hours about Bhutanese culture, Asia, Buddhism, Paro and Thimphu, the GNH, and some other random stuff. I told him about the project I'd created and started, school, etc. I talked to him about the GNH and he said that it was complete bullshit. We went back and forth about the subject. He said that the GNH is just a publicity thing. And everyone’s cleaning up the cities for a conference that’s going to happen soon. SAGG or something. It is a huge conference where all the countries in Asia get together about once a year, and now it’s in Bhutan. Sadly, I had to leave for the discussion at Deer Park but we swapped phone numbers, planning to meet up again.

I got to Deer Park and met up with the four other people there. There was one Bhutanese man, a woman from California, a man from Israel, and the Llama. The Llama read from a book by Chogyam Trungpa, and we would occasionally react to the reading. Afterward we all met up at Ambient Café. I talked to the woman, Cara, and found out that she has been here for about seven months or so and is a third and fourth grade teacher and can teach high school history. The man from Isreal, Noam, was here teaching music and said something about composing for the king. A third man joined us, Shafik, and he is a math/science/other stuff teacher. I’m not quite sure why he’s here. I talked with them for hours and they were all incredibly interesting people. We talked about Buddhism, Bhutan, breaking down walls, wet dreams, writing, motivation, working best at night, relationships, and creating an entirely new day. It was awesome. I argued with Cara about history and it’s importance and it’s significance, etc. I felt like I was arguing with McAvoy again. I talked to Noam about his creation of a 28-hour day. That might have been the highlight of my day. He created a system where you would have a six-day week, the days were 28 hours long, and you would sleep for 8 hours over that 28-hour period. All it all, it was brilliant. We calculated the days and hours and years for a while. I got really excited; I was working with math how could I not? We all left the café around 10, and I was satisfied.

Now, I have spent the entire day revising, editing, and basically creating my blog. Tomorrow, I plan on heading to Paro for some new adventures.